Neuroscience Major finds clarity in Spain Education Abroad Program

When Ava Richardson boarded a flight to Barcelona in June 2025, the MSU senior hoped a week observing Spanish physicians might help her confirm whether medicine was her calling. By the time she flew home, she says, the experience had “solidified” her plan to pursue medical school.

Richardson, a neuroscience major on the pre‑med track, first heard about Global Health Studies’ Spain Pre‑Clinical Observation program through a friend. Study abroad had always appealed to her, but cost concerns felt like a roadblock until she learned about scholarships she could apply for. 

“I kind of knew about study abroad. It was something that I was always interested in. I just never thought I would be able to do it cause of funding and costs and stuff like that,” she said. “I thought that would kind of hold me back… until I heard about like scholarships and I applied for those.”

Once she began comparing programs, Spain stood out for its timing, history and the chance to observe surgery. 

“Just the thought of Spain, its history… it just sounded really cool to me,” Richardson said. “Specialty-wise, I think that kind of drew me in more because it mentioned… that you'd be able to shadow surgeries… I have shadowed physicians before, just never in surgery.”

Any nerves about a language barrier faded quickly after interacting with local physicians and nurses.

“They were super nice. They were super accommodating,” Richardson said of hospital practitioners.  “They wanted us to be involved… sometimes [they’d] let us listen to heartbeats, people’s breathing in their lungs, always like asking us if we want to see this patient or that patient.”

Across five clinical days, Richardson rotated through pediatrics, orthopedic surgery, general surgery, the emergency department and a noninvasive neurology service, which was a tie back to her major that initially got her interested in the program. 

One patient encounter during Richardson’s pediatric rotation stood out. 

“There was one specific child… he was, I think… four or five years old,” she recalled. “He had this bacteria that ate away at his skin. Just seeing like that little kid… you could tell that he was in a lot of pain… [but] the doctors were super loving towards him. They had very good bedside manners.”

That compassion, Richardson said, was something that stuck with her and reminded her of comparisons from her experiences in American healthcare settings. “I didn’t experience [bad bedside manner] with any of the Spain doctors. I felt that they were all super loving and they had… very sweet [care] to all their patients.”

Outside of the hospital, Richardson and her program cohort experienced the culture of life in Barcelona. One particularly memorable moment came on the program’s final day, when a pickup soccer game was arranged between the cohort and a Barcelona women’s refugee mission group. 

“It was really cool to hear some of their stories,” she said. “The biggest thing was that they felt safe and they were in a safe environment and they had each other… I thought that was kind of inspiring.”

In addition to soccer, the cohort toured Barcelona, went to the local beach and took a cooking class with local chefs. 

“We made a bunch of Spanish home-style dishes and it was super good,” Richardson said. “It’s not just… about the medicine… it’s everything else you get to experience… I was only there for a week and I made lifelong friends.”

Before Spain, Richardson briefly considered other health pathways. After Spain, her compass pointed back to neuroscience and her ambitions to attend medical school after graduation.

“Maybe [the Spain program] would be like a good opportunity for me to change my outlook a little bit and it kind of did,” she said. “It just kind of solidified that I did want to do that… being in an environment where people are so inviting… especially when I was kind of like on the fence about it… helped solidify that I wanted to do that.”

For students thinking about going on an education abroad program, Richardson implores that there are ways to assist with funding that can alleviate the financial burden. 

“There are so many opportunities for you to be able to apply for scholarships… which is definitely something that helped me pay for the trip,” she said. “It was totally worth it. Worth the time, worth the energy. Don’t let finances hold you back if it’s something you really want to do.”